Death of the Espada
by Niji Hitomi Kabra
Summary: He's dead. Gone. What are the Espada gonna do now? The second-in-command has no idea, but he reflects on it because there's nothing else he can do. Warnings: AU, implied yaoi, language, semi-off-screen character death, semi-off-screen violence, the abuse of one glass tumbler. Third-person Grimm/Ichi.


**A/N:** Konnichiwa, minna! This is a one-shot set in the universe of a fic I'm working on with my partner, the wonderful Silva, called Blue Motherfucker. That isn't ready to be posted just yet, but seeing as today is Ulquiorra's birthday, and tomorrow is mine, I thought I'd give you all a preview of one of the other universes we've got floating around in our 'currently being written' list. Ja ne!

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The glass slammed down onto the hard, hand-polished wood. The pale, long-boned hand clutching the cold, transparent vessel trembled. He never drank. EVER! He was the level-headed one, the clear-thinker, the designated driver. He was the one who calculated their every move, advised the King, gathered the information, saw the fucking shot coming before the enemy thought to draw his weapon. So, how!? How had this happened? How could he have let it happen!?

He splashed the bitter, amber alcohol into his glass again, and knocked it back, trying to make the burn in his throat like fiberglass against his tonsils drown out the ache in his sternum that no physical wound could make. A hole, the size of his fist, cut straight through his chest, like a hollowed place that used to hold his heart. He blinked blearily at the glass, glaring at it because it was empty again.

The last forty-eight hours had been Hell. Forty-eight fucking hours of slow, creeping Hell. The foreknowledge of the outcome hadn't made it any easier to bear. And the King? He was beside himself. Locked in the house that was his palace with the other half of the man's team. Unreachable and sealed off from the outside world, and the harms it could inflict on a flame such as he.

The op had started simply enough. Just crack the firewall, break the padlock, slip into the warehouse, nab the shit and go. Fog had rolled in off the river, giving the Espada the cloak of darkness hours before the sun had even begun to set. The electronic triggers were tripped just the way he wanted and everything was perfect. Smooth and simple. Shiro had hated it.

Then shit. Gri—no! Never again. He's a motherfucker, leaving like that. A goddamned blue motherfucker! Just had to reach into the fucking crate! Just had to scrape his hand on that fucking blade just inside the wood. Just had to be first.

He slammed his glass on the bar again, glaring out at the empty clubhouse. Not even the stragglers were hanging around in the corners. It had been a terrifying sight for them, when they'd hauled the motherfucker in on Nnoitra and Kenpachi's shoulders. He'd already begun to show signs.

The King had rushed to his side, screaming about getting the medics. But who was there to get at three in the morning on the weekend besides Szayel? Shiro had come in after, even paler than normal because he had been supposed to be the one to break the crate. He'd been distracted, his attention caught by some shadow to the side of the warehouse they'd never actually seen.

It was essential, that crate. He didn't even remember what was in it anymore. Forty-eight hours had been so long that the op that had been his plan in the first place was no longer even important. Fucking Shinigami and their fucking traps.

All he could remember now was hearing the motherfucker cry out some oath in their native German. He whipped his head around, and the blue-haired leader was clutching his hand to his chest, blood pouring from a slice along the palm. The drip of crimson onto concrete had been like slow-motion. Something was immediately wrong. That injured hand had reached out, both arms flailing for balance. The Sexta NEVER needed to catch his balance. In an instant the White Demons and the Black Vikings were on top of him.

The King had been holding down the fort, with Chad and Szayel, but in radio contact. And knew the moment everything had turned sour. Because as soon as the Sexta fell, bullets rained from the ceiling. Pistols were out and returning fire before a word was spoken. Some nameless guttersnipe screamed and Nnoitra, back-to-back with Kenpachi, spun towards the sound. That was when he caught a round across his temple. He cursed and returned fire. It hadn't been until dawn that they'd realized the tallest of their number had been half blinded.

Ulquiorra dove for the leader. They had to get out, get the motherfucker to safety, get whatever shit was in his system out of it. But they were surrounded. The Shinigami had somehow discovered their plan, and had been waiting specifically for the fall of their most powerful Dog.

Black-clothed figures descended from the ceiling, and burst out of crates, all with guns leveled at the five-man team. It had been a madhouse. Chaos reigned. Someone had been laughing. It may have been Kenpachi. Or maybe Nnoitra? Or someone else? He no longer knew. Between that moment when everything went to shit, and arriving back at the club, carrying the already delirious Sexta, his memory was blank.

He grabbed the glass and the bottle, stumbling toward the middle of the club. Tables and chairs were kicked over, still knocked out of the way from when the Black Vikings, Nnoitra and Kenpachi, had cleared the space for Szayel to have room to work on the motherfucker. He glared at the dark stain where in his final moments the blue-haired man had vomited, his body attempting in vain to purge the shit that was eating him alive from the inside out. Ironically, on the concrete floor, the stain was a dark blue marijuana leaf.

The motherfucker hadn't begged, hadn't pleaded, hadn't even fucking cursed the fucking Shinigami. All he'd done was hold his bitch's hand, and stare up at him. The King hadn't cried until that hand he held had gone limp. Not until the cerulean blue eyes had fallen closed never to open again. Then his twin had gathered him in his arms, pulled him away from the corpse that had been his lover and held him like no one else in the club could.

He hadn't seen what happened to the twins after that, but they were there in matching black just that morning when the entire Espada had been there to see the motherfucker buried. That was the part that really burned Ulquiorra.

Matsumoto, Kenpachi, Renji, and Nnoitra had come up to him after. They said they wanted out. Said they'd seen too many people hurt or killed, and were done with the life. At the time he'd just stared at them and told them they could fuck themselves for he cared. He wasn't the Top Dog. He didn't lead the Espada, he'd promised the motherfucker he never would.

He was supposed to advise the King. It was a deal they'd made weeks before all of this shit had happened. Fucking sixth sense. It was like the motherfucker had known he was gonna die. He'd set up shit so that the King could take over. Complete with a court to serve him. But that hadn't happened.

Which is how he wound up sitting in the darkened club, at not even God knew what time of the day it was, drinking the second to last bottle of Groovy Blue Motherfucker that had actually been made by the man himself, and trying his damnedest to _stop_ thinking about everything that had taken his perfect world and turned it to shit.

Downing the very last swig in the bottle, the pale man, cheeks flushed bright pink with the alcohol, glared again at the stain on the floor and threw the glassware in his hand. It exploded in a satisfying shatter right where that mop of messy blue spikes had lay for his last few moments. If the man's body had still been there, it would have embedded shards of glass into his skull.

"Tha's'it muth'rfu'k'r…I'mma git sum'in' yeh cain't stop me fer-f'r-from gittin'. Ya said I c-cain't cry…well gueess what! What? I'mma gonna cry fer th' rest o' m' damn fuckin' life, ya basstard. Ya…ya damn…muth'rfu'k'r!" He was slurring his words horribly, but he knew just where to go.

Hisagi. Wiry little shit that had been one of the King's toys before the motherfucker had claimed the berry as his own permanently. He'd gone into tattooing. Had done all of Renji's shit once the redhead had become addicted to the shit. So, the drunken hacker, former White Demon, knew that no matter what time of day it was, or how drunk he was, Mr. Vulgar-face would take him and do what he wanted him to do.

So, without another word, he turned on his heel, marched on wobbly legs to the bar so the bottle wouldn't break accidentally—Groovy Blue Motherfuckers simply could not be brewed in anything other than the bottles the Sexta had chosen personally, especially not anymore. Not now that the drink's namesake was unable to choose any more bottles if one broke.

Then he stumbled to the door, fumbled with the light switches, not bothering to look and see if he actually turned them all off, and let the steel entrance close with a definitive bang, like the sound of a gunshot echoing through the building that had never before been quite so quiet, or so empty. Even the windows looked forlorn as a single spotlight highlighted the dark blue leaf shaped stain in the middle of the club that was more like a home for the lost and the abandoned of the bowels of Las Noches.


End file.
